Illumination of nonemissive vehicle instrument panel displays for driver viewing during low ambient lighting conditions is typically achieved with front-lighting or floodlighting techniques in which a light source is directed onto the front face of the display. Unfortunately, this technique causes significant heating and the display pointer tends to shadow the face of the display. As an alternative, the display may be backlit by directing a light source onto the rear face of the display, thereby lighting portions of the display which are normally dark, but then the pointer must be separately lit by either front-lighting or lightpiping techniques. Front-lighting has drawbacks in terms of heating and shadowing, as described above, and tends to defeat the back-lighting effect, while pointer lightpiping has drawbacks in terms of weight, cost and packaging.